


The Universal War

by hyperInactive, Quillstar



Category: Homestuck, Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Are there any other gems I should know about, Characters will be added as the story develops, Terezi's a gem, The alphas are gems, decent amount of blood, there are some oc's in there too but its just background characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-07 01:21:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4244145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyperInactive/pseuds/hyperInactive, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillstar/pseuds/Quillstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat could still hear the alarms ringing in his ears, and being a fugitive wasn't anything like that John Cusack movie John saw. From government-funded genetic experiments, to good old fashioned revolution, it seems like none of these kids are going to be able to get a break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ====> Karkat: Escape

**Author's Note:**

> I never found any fanfictions with the prompt "Alternia vs Homeworld" so me and hyperInactive got together and wrote this. We're going to be writing in a prompt based system, so if there's anything you want to see the characters doing, then let us know by commenting something for them to do, and we'll probably write it. Also, the first chapter has been completely rewritten, so if you had read the story before March 1st, 2017, then just know that most things have changed.

Karkat could still hear the alarms ringing in his ears, even though they had long since left Alternia behind.  Oh, wait, no.  There were still alarms, just coming from _every fucking part of this damned ship_.  Why had they chosen the one ship that seemed to break every five seconds?  He was focusing on trying not to crash, while everyone else was keeping the ship from exploding.  

“Terezi! The fuel line burst again!” He shouted, hearing her yell in frustration.  He himself groaned, wishing he could just get the ship moving faster so they could find a good planet to land on.  

Why the fuck had he ended up in this situation?

It all started with a fusion.

 

* * *

 

_“Hey, Karkat!  I think I found something over here!” Terezi shouted, her voice echoing through the trees.  Karkat ran over to her.  She was kneeling in the dirt, reaching into a fallen log.  The two were out in the forest by her hive, searching for random things she can use in her FLARP campaigns.  She often dragged Karkat out with her, but he didn't mind.  She pulled her arm out of the log, holding up a jagged tooth with a gleam in her yellow eyes._

_“I doubt Vriska is gonna have something this cool!” She said._

_“Vriska doesn’t have anything cool.” Karkat scoffed.  Terezi laughed, standing up and brushing the dirt off her knees.  Suddenly they froze.  A roar rang through the air, followed by the pounding of footsteps.  Karkat uncaptchalogued his sickles, as Terezi unsheathed her sword.  A large cholerbear burst through the undergrowth, batting a tree down with its massive paw.  Karkat ran forward, slashing at the bear and drawing olive green blood.  So it was a lusus.  He felt bad for the troll that was going to have to tend to their injured lusus, but there was no way he and Terezi were getting out of this alive without hurting it.  Terezi stabbed it, but was sent flying into a tree, and when she stood up she had teal blood dripping from her scent node._

_The two kept fighting, but this cholerbear was twice the size of both of them combined.  Karkat luckily hadn’t been hurt badly enough to draw blood, but his think pan was throbbing and something was probably broken.  Terezi was to the side of the beast, who was focused on Karkat, and getting ready to stab it.  She didn't see its barbed tail swinging around behind her.  Karkat did.  He ran as fast as he could, tackling her out of the way, and suddenly everything turned red.  He immediately panicked, checking his body for blood, but what he saw was almost worse.  His body...was different._

_Grey skin was mottled with red, but it was actual skin, not blood.  He seemed taller.  Something was off.  Then he felt it, a presence in his mind that he had never felt before._

Karkat! _It yelled in Terezi’s voice.  He realized that it_ was _Terezi.  He...She?  They?  Stood up in shock._

What the fuck is this? _Karkat thought-yelled back.  He had heard of something like this, enemy gems combining into one massive being of destruction, but that was impossible.  Unless…._

_The fusion collapsed, Karkat being flung away from Terezi._

_“You’re a gem!” He yelled, pointing accusingly at her, the cholerbear beside them forgotten for now.  Terezi was staring at Karkat, eyes wide, yet she pointed right back at him._

_“Yeah, and you’re a mutant!”_

_They stood there, silent.  The cholerbear grew restless.  It roared, and attacked once again, Terezi running towards Karkat to escape its claws._

_“We can’t beat this thing on our own, and we can’t outrun it!” She said, reaching out for Karkat’s hand.  “I know you were freaked out, so was I, but we need to fuse again if we want to get out of here.”_

_Karkat eyed her hand warily.  Gems were dangerous, but Terezi had been his friend since they were two sweeps old, and...maybe a little more than that too.  He sighed, and grabbed her hand.  His vision filled with red light again, and when it faded he was once again in that strange body with the red and grey skin.  Their arm moved experimentally, and Karkat was amazed at the feeling.  It wasn’t like he was in his own body, and yet he was still somewhat in control.  He and Terezi, they were working as one to control this...being.  There was a heat on their back, and suddenly wings of flame were on either side of them.  They still had both Karkats sickles and Terezi’s cane-sword, and so they were dual wielding with one in each hand.  They ran/flew forward, slashing, and since they were now around the same size as the cholerbear, they managed to catch it off guard.  A slash to its shoulder and stomach sent it reeling, and when they stabbed it in the gut with the entirety of a sickle it turned to run away.  However, its tail swung around and caught them in the face, breaking apart their fusion and sending Karkat flying into a rock.  Terezi, taking the brunt of the blow, was sent flying as well only with much worse wounds._

_“T-terezi?” Karkat managed to get out, stumbling over to where she lay.  Her hands were covering her eyes, but he could see teal seeping through them.  He winced, and reached around her to pick her up.  As he did, his hand rested on her back, feeling something that shouldn’t be there.  Her gem, he reasoned.  He ran through the forest, not caring about his own blood trickling down his neck, until he reached Terezi’s hive.  Getting up the tree was a challenge while holding Terezi, but he made it, and set her gently down on the floor.  Then he tended to her eyes, which had been nearly shredded by the barbs on the cholerbear’s tail.  He managed to stop the bleeding, and Terezi became conscious enough to activate the wings from her gem, burning through the back of her already pretty shredded shirt.  Karkat stumbled back, away from the flames._

_“What are you doing?” He shouted, as she took a deep breath.  He made the connection a little too late.  She touched the tips of the wings to her eyes, screaming in pain as the heat cauterized the open slashes.  Then the wings disappeared and she collapsed to the floor, unconscious.  Her eyes weren't bleeding anymore, but they were irreparably burned.  Karkat was in shock, only moving to get her in a more comfortable position.  Then he checked the back of his own head, finding blood but it was already finished bleeding.  He stared at Terezi, who was apparently some sort of troll/gem hybrid, then at his blood-covered hands, stained a mutated red.  Only six words came to him._

_“We need to get off Alternia.”_

* * *

 

 

 

And so here they were, two fugitives who dragged their six friends into also being fugitives.  Unfortunately they had to leave behind four others, but they managed to convince themselves that they would be okay on Alternia.  Terezi was now blind, using enhanced senses granted to her by her gem to navigate.  She said she was fine, but the burns obviously still hurt.  It had only been half a lunar cycle since she was wounded, after all.  In that time, the two had managed to round up Sollux, Vriska, Aradia, Tavros, Feferi, and Kanaya and convinced them to escape.  They had no idea Terezi was a gem, but Karkat had told them about his blood in order to convince them to come.  They took it well...mostly.  Vriska had to be talked down by Terezi, but she eventually was on board.  

“Damn it!” Karkat heard Sollux shout, before he ran into the cockpit.

“KK, we need to land, now.  Thith ship ith fucking falling apart.”

Karkat sighed, and looked around on the screens for any available planets.  Luckily, one that should work was right to the side of them, and so Karkat turned the ship sharply, hearing a thud and a curse from the other section of the ship.  They landed somewhat easily, but it was incredibly bumpy.  They were lucky that the ship didn't crash and explode.  The eight trolls stumbled off the ship, and into the dense forest-like area they had landed in.  There didn't seem to be any living creatures around.  

“Where are we?” Vriska asked, looking around.

“I have no idea.” Terezi answered.  Vriska punched her in the arm.

“It looks like this is a safe planet for now.” Kanaya said, “Sollux can you fix the ship?”

Sollux shrugged.  “I’m not as good with shipth ath I am computerth, but yeah.”

When they turned back around, Terezi had already grabbed some sticks and made a fire.  They spent some time securing the area, and then started looking for something to eat.  The planet’s sun was about to rise when they finished eating and setting up camp, and so they headed back into the ship to sleep.  They had no recuperacoons, but they would make do.  

When everyone else was asleep, one troll with zero impulse control by the name of Vriska Serket snuck out of the ship to explore.  If there was valuable treasure on this planet, you can be damn sure she was gonna find it.  She trekked through the underbrush, snagging her leg on a branch and tripping face first onto the ground.  Before she could get up, she heard voices.  

“I swear I heard something, should I get Condor?”

Vriska felt her breath catch.  She stayed as still as she could, a hand on her dice.

“No, we shouldn't bother her unless we catch something, you don't want her to tell Yellow Diamond we wasted her time here do you?”

 _Yellow Diamond_.  The name echoed in Vriska’s mind.  This planet wasnt uninhabited after all.  

Gems were here.


	2. ==>John: Run

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that this is pretty much a rewritten fic so if you read chapter one before March 1st, 2017, go read that first.

Being a fugitive isn’t anything like that John Cusack movie John saw. Instead of saving the world while looking bad ass, all he’s done is escape from a secret government base and stolen some jewelry. Instead of laying low from the cops in some awesome safe house, he’s staying at an old motel with floors so dirty he hasn't seen the actual floor.

It had been almost two days since they escaped the SKAIA Research Lab, and clearly, everyone was still shaken up over the whole thing. John looked over to Dave, who was beat boxing much quieter than normal. Meanwhile, Jade was playing a lovely rendition of My Heart Will Go On on her air guitar, which was weird since she usually preferred much happier songs such as Cotton Eye Joe. Rose was absentmindedly flipping through the tv channels, occasionally stopping whenever a Denny’s commercial played. Overall, the mood in that cramped motel room was fucking depressing.

SKAIA was horrible, but he had been there for so long that he still considered it home. His mind couldn’t help but wander through happier memories, fragments of the past that, no matter how hard any of them tried, they could never go back to, like how once someone watches Disney’s Robin Hood, they can never escape from being a furry.

 

* * *

_ “Alright everyone, that will be all for today.” Miss Lalonde’s voice rang through the room’s speakers. “Now please proceed to the lunch block. I hear Joel has something special for you kids!”  _

_ “What do you think Mr. Egbert has for us today?” Jade asked, while brushing some dirt off of her pants. _

_ “I bet he made us weed brownies.” Dave answered. “They’re gonna get us high as fuck and then see if we can still use our powers.” The four of them walked out of the testing room and started walking towards the dining area. _

_ “Doubtful. If they wanted to drug us they would probably use something less addicting.” Rose said. “Although I bet the experience is as exhilarating as I’ve heard.” Dave nodded while opening a bottle of apple juice. _

_ “Nah. Knowing dad, he’d make apple pie but replace the apple with piss.” John said, just as Dave was about to take a swig of apple juice. As soon as the word piss blissfully caressed Dave’s ears, his mouth turned into a geyser of apple juice. Forget Yellowstone, The real place to be is Dave’s Hot Apple Juice Waterfall. Ticket sales open this June, so plan accordingly. _

_ “That,” Dave hissed, “was a perfectly good bottle of apple juice. Apple juice that will never have the privilege of me drinking it. You have cursed me with your David Bowie antics for the last time Egbert. Know this, when the opportunity arises, my revenge will be swift, it will strike you when you least expect it. You have been warned.” Everyone stared at Dave in silence, then, after exactly 32 seconds, they all burst out laughing. _

_ “Well,” sighed John, as he caught his breath, “I just hope it isn’t fucking cake.” _

* * *

 

It was indeed cake.

John missed those days. Even though they weren’t allowed to leave SKAIA, their guardians still made sure that they had as much freedom as possible. John looked over at his father and Ms. Lalonde, who were having a conversation comprised mainly of strange gestures and unintelligible whispers. 

“Guys,” John whispered to the other three kids. “what are we gonna do about the jewelry we took?”

“The plan was to somehow sell them and then use the money to buy us all a house, if I recall.” Rose answered. “The hard part will be convincing Joel and Roxy that we obtained the money semi-legally and not by stealing some jewelry that quite possibly served some purpose other than being aesthetically pleasing.”

“Plus those gemstones are really big.” Jade said while tuneing her air guitar. “The green one was like half the size of my palm.”

“Yeah, and the orange one shocked me when I picked it up.” Dave said, leaning back against the wall.

Before John could call bullshit, Ms. Lalonde clapped her hands together three times, which she usually did as a way of saying ‘Shut up and listen up’. “Ok children,” Ms. Lalonde said, trying to sound as optimistic as possible. “pack your bags, because we’re gonna head out.”

“Where?” Dave asked.

“I’m glad you asked!” Ms. Lalonde answered. “We’re going to a town called Beach City. I have an old contact who lives near there, and it’s quiet enough for us to lay low.”

“So when are we leaving?” Jade asked, while putting her air guitar into her air guitar case.

“Now.” said Mr. Egbert. “I’ll start the truck, so hurry up and grab what you need.”

And so, they all got into the truck, Mr. Egbert and Ms. Lalonde in the front seats, the kids in the back of the truck, the night sky above them, the light of the moon slightly illuminating the road. As the four kids left behind the dirty motel, they watched as it got smaller and smaller. Then they saw it blow up.

“Shit.” Rose said calmly.

“Shit!” Jade screamed.

“Hold on back there!” Mr. Egbert screamed at them. “Let’s hope this thing can go faster than 30 miles per hour.”

The good news was that the old truck could indeed go faster than 30 miles per hour. 

The bad news was that it could only go up to 33 miles per hour. 

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, they found us. We’re gonna die!” John screamed.

“Wait, guys, that jewelry we stole. Maybe it’ll enhance our powers.” Jade said.

The four of them reached into their bags, pulled out some jewelry, and put them on.

“I- I think it’s working!” Dave yelled. The jewelry didn’t do shit.  The placebo effect was more effective than these stones.

They saw an armored car speeding at them. It was black, like the cookie part of an oreo. A gloved hand holding a gun came out the window and started shooting at them. The glove was white, like the cream part of an oreo. 

“John, throw a tornado or something at them!” Rose yelled. 

“Alright! I got this!” John focused all his strength into his hand and closed his eyes. Energy surged around him. If anime was real, his hair would be bright yellow. John opened his eyes and released a gust of wind. Unfortunately, the car was very aerodynamic so nothing happened. A bullet grazed Dave’s shoulder, producing a cut that would not be considered deep, but was not a light cut either. 

“Fuck!” Dave screamed, which was an appropriate reaction to being shot.

“I can’t focus on the ground, we’re going too fast!” Jade screamed.

Just then, a bullet hit the rear left tire. The truck spun out of control, and Jade flew out from the back of the truck like a bag full of water balloons filled with spaghetti sauce. The truck went off the road into the dense woods and came to a stop. 

John immediately jumped out of the truck and ran off, shouting, “I’m going after Jade!”

“John wait!” Joel called after him, but his car door was jammed against a tree and he couldn't get out. So Dave and Rose, against the desperate protests of Joel and Roxy, looked at each other and ran after John. However, the woods that the car had skidded into were pitch black, blacker than the color that Rose would calmly use to describe her soul. They managed to stay together, but they couldn't find John. They didn't want to call too loudly, in case whoever shot Dave could still hear them, and so they were utterly lost. 

“Dave?” Rose asked, leaning against a tree. 

“Yeah?”

“This would have been a lot easier if you used your fire.”

“Shit.”

Dave’s hand burst into flame, and it did indeed make it about 300 times easier to see. However, they still couldn't find their way to John or back to the car. 

“Maybe we should just try and find that city that your mom was talking about.” Dave said. “John and Jade will probably head there too.” 

Rose sighed and nodded.  

“If we keep walking east, we should be able to get to a town where there's a map.  Mother was talking about how this city is on the east coast too, so worst case scenario we just head east until we hit the ocean.”  As she spoke she walked up to Dave and took his arm gently in her hand.  He sighed.

“It's not that bad, it can wait.”

He was right, it wasn't that bad, but his sleeve was red with blood and the wound hadn't even stopped bleeding yet.  Rose rolled her eyes at his protests, but dropped his arm.  He knew the discussion wasn't over.  

“So...which way is east?” He asked, and Rose closed her eyes.  When they opened again, she pointed to the right.  

“That way.”

“Okay so like, I get you probably used your watery shenanigans right there but how the fuck?”

“Simple.  Most rivers flow south, and so I felt which direction the rivers near here were flowing and used that to find east.”

Dave pondered for a second before nodding.

“Makes as much sense as any of our bullshit.  Let's go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget that if there's anything you want to see the characters doing, like John: Protect Jade, or Terezi: Show off your gem powers, then leave a comment and if we like what you're putting down, then we'll write it in!


	3. Nepeta ==> Be Interrogated

“Answer the questions truthfully. We will know if you are lying.” The voice which belonged to the hooded figure in front of Nepeta said. After their friends escaped, Nepeta, Equius, Gamzee, and Eridan were taken from the Hemoprism while they were still being sorted into their roles, and taken to a dark and menacing ship. They were put in separate interrogation rooms and told to wait for further instructions. 

“What is your relationship with the escaped fugitives.” The hooded figure with the cold, almost robotic voice said. Nepeta frowned.

“What escaped fugitives? I don’t know what you’re talking about!” She replied, and the figure crossed their arms. 

“Maybe this will jog your memory.” They said, and pulled up a screen on the wall that showed the registry of trolls that were expected at the Hemoprism. They were all recently seven sweeps, and were expected at the prism to be assessed and assigned a job throughout the Empire. A picture came on the screen and Nepeta sucked in a breath. It changed, flashing another familiar face, then another. Karkat, Terezi, Vriska, Tavros, Kanaya, Aradia, Sollux, even Feferi. They were fugitives? They _escaped_? Taking her shocked face as invitation to continue, the hooded figure spoke again.

“I’ll ask again. What is your relationship with the fugitives.”

Nepeta sighed. She couldn't just lie to them, she would definitely die, these trolls didn't fuck around. 

“They’re my furriends.” She said. 

“Did you know of their plan to escape?”

She frowned. No, she didn't and it made her upset that they left her behind. Ok, Eridan she understood, Feferi would have been the only one that wanted to bring him, but why Gamzee? Karkat was good friends with him. Why did Karkat, Terezi, and Kanaya leave Nepeta behind, they were really close! Now, she didn't want the Threshecutioners or Cavalreapers that were most definitely already after them to _find_ them, they would never make it out alive. She just wished that they had thought about her. 

“No.” Was all she said, but her face told the rest of the story to the hooded troll. 

“Your friends have told a similar story.”

“So can I go now?” Nepeta asked, against her better judgement. Speaking out of line probably wasn't a good idea, but she was a little stressed right now. She didn’t want to be here for hours and hours (like all the interrogations on Troll CSI), and she had literally nothing else to tell them. She just wanted to go back to the Hemoprism, apply to be a Purrsuer, and forget that her friends left her behind. 

“Normally, no. You have associated with known fugitives, and the Empire couldn't risk you remaining in contact with them. However, your friends of a higher caste, including one who claims to occupy the pale quadrant with you, have asked your lives to be spared. Having royalty on your side helped. You are free to go.”

The door clicked and swung open, and to say Nepeta sprinted out of that room was an understatement. Next thing she knew, she was flat on the floor after running straight into something large and...sweaty?

“Equius!” She cried, leaping up and hugging him tight. He hugged back, much gentler. Then Nepeta punched him.

“Equius!” She shouted, angry this time. 

“Nepeta.” He responded.

“Equius.” Nepeta hissed.

“Nepeta?” Equius asked.

“EQUIUS!” Nepeta growled.

“Oh fiddlesticks.” Equius sighed.

“Why,” Nepeta said, while stretching to her full height of ‘Equius’s shoulders’. “the fuck-”

“Language.”

“Why the _fuck_ didn’t you tell me about their escape plans?” She shouted, and Equius flinched back slightly. She had no proof that Equius had known, but honestly? If Vriska was involved of course she was going to brag to her next door neighbor. She couldn't keep her mouth shut if her life depended on it. 

“I did it to protect you.” He said, and Nepeta rolled her eyes. She could protect herself damn it. 

“Yes, I know you can protect yourself,” Equius started, reading her mind the way only a moirail can, “but if you didn't know then you couldn't be punished for their actions.”

Nepeta grumbled and crossed her arms, knowing in her mind that he was right but still mad. 

“Are you hurt?” He asked, and she shook her head. She looked behind him and saw Eridan and Gamzee standing there. 

“They’ve given us a few days to ‘collect ourselves’ before we need to show up again at the Prism.” Eridan said. “I don’t know about you guys but I don't want to stay here any longer than I have to.”

Nepeta agreed with the whole of her being, and so they found their way to a shuttle that would take them back to Alternia. Once their feet were on the ground again, they realized they didn't really want to go anywhere. All their friends were gone, and if they were being honest, only Nepeta and Equius were _really_ friends out of the four of them. So they split up, Nepeta and Equius going together to Nepeta’s cave and the others going back to their hives. It hurt that Nepeta’s first instinct was to get on Trollian and tell Terezi this _crazy_ story. But Terezi was gone. 

The ‘few days’ that they had were actually more like a day and a half, and Nepeta found herself back in the Hemoprism sooner than she’d like. Yeah, she was actually kind of excited to be a Purrsuer, only the best olive-bloods were chosen for this assassin-like class, but it would mean leaving Equius for what was probably the rest of her life. She would only be able to talk to him over Trollian. But hey, that was better than nothing.

* * *

Nepeta was a little shocked when she was accepted into the Purrsuers so fast. Sure, she had to wait, but she was in and out in one day which was a lot shorter than some trolls. She barely had time to hug Equius goodbye before she was escorted to the ship that would take her to the Purrsuer training ground. She didn’t know how long the training was supposed to take, but it was obviously going to be a while since they gave her a barrack number and a blockmate. She was practically shoved into her personalized Purrsuer uniform (with her sign in the top right corner) and then immediately sent to her block. She sat on the edge of her assigned recuperacoon as her blockmate came in, also dressed in her uniform with her own olive sign. She gave Nepeta an odd look, her eyes flicking to Nepeta’s sign before back up to her face. 

“Uh, hi!” Nepeta said brightly, waving. The troll looked startled for a second, before she relaxed. “I’m Nepeta! What’s your name?”

“Oh, I’m Ketrit.” The other troll said, and Nepeta could see the tension leave her body. She wasn’t sure why Ketrit was so nervous, but at least she wasn’t anymore. She was about to ask Ketrit about herself when a loud voice boomed through the speakers on the ceiling.

“ _All new Purrsuer recruits report to the main field immediately or face culling. Your training starts now_.”

Nepeta sighed, and she noticed Ketrits face fall too. They walked together out of the block. Nepeta looked over the other olive bloods flooding to the field, with the rare other caste mixed in, and felt her muscles ache in exhaustion preemptively. She briefly wondered what Equius, Eridan, and Gamzee were up to, and then her friends out in space. She didn’t realize she had stopped walking until Ketrit tugged her forward with an oddly hesitant hand on her wrist. They stopped in front of a tall adult olive blood who was staring sternly at them. Nepeta felt a shiver down her spine.

Time to start the rest of her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick thing!! If you want to you can also send story suggestions to either of our writing blogs on tumblr! I (hyperInactive) am @rorzee-ebubbles (It's also where i will post updates to all my fanfictions) and Quillstar is at, well, @quillstar! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!


	4. John => Get high as fuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> weed jokes. we're very funny.

John ran like the fucking wind. Getting Jade to safety was all he could think of. All he could hear was the wind, howling in his ears. All he could see was the blur of trees. And so he ran. He ran so far away. He just ran. A flock of seagulls singing overhead was what made him realize that it was probably safe enough to stop and rest.

John was exhausted, but Jade was still bleeding. He tore off one of his shirt sleeves and used it to bandage Jade’s blood soaked head.

“Think John think.” He mumbled under his breath. “Can’t go to the hospital, they might be expecting that.” John looked through his bag, sand digging into his knees, the salty breeze stinging his-  wait, sand? Salty breeze? He looked up and paid some fucking attention to his surroundings. He was at a beach which stretched a couple of miles. At one end, he noticed it turned around a steep cliff, but at the other end, he saw some light. A town? A city. He’d have to check once Jade was safe.

“Sorry Slimer, you will be missed.” John took his shirt off and started tearing it into strips. He soaked some in saltwater and used it to clean Jade’s wound, and used the other strips to replace the makeshift bandages.

Eventually, he ran out of shirt, and he wasn’t sure just yet if he was willing to sacrifice his pants next. While he dragged Jade closer to the water so that he could try and get rid of the blood that was stuck in her hair, a soft blue glow caught his eye. He set Jade down on a rock and ran over to their stuff. Sitting in the sand was the necklace he had thought would give him special windy powers, its gemstone softly glowing a light blue. Suddenly, John felt mad. Mad because he couldn’t help Jade. Mad because he got separated from the others. Mad because apparently now was when the thing decided to fucking work. He grabbed the necklace and threw it at a nearby rock.

Then, two things happened which would have normally been impossible, but due to plot relevance magyyks, they did. One, the silver around the gemstone broke perfectly, releasing the gem from its stylish prison. Two, the gem floated up in the air, and a body seemed to manifest around it. John wondered if someone had slipped him some weed and he was hallucinating. He knew nothing about how weed works but it’s probably what he’s experiencing right?

The figure turned into that of a blue humanoid. Like, her skin was blue.  And her hair, and her eyes, and her clothes.  She had a light blue dress on, with a short skirt and darker blue leggings.  What really confused John, though, was the diamond cutout on her stomach, where the gem now rested.  When her feet touched the ground, she looked around her in shock, before she took off running past John towards Jade, who was still resting on a rock.

“Oh dear oh dear, let’s hope I can still repair organic matter.” The gem rested her hand on Jade’s wounded head, and then her hand began to glow. John watched, still wondering whether or not he was under the effects of the weed.

The gem carefully picked up Jade, and walked towards John. “Gather whatever you need, and follow me.” She said calmly. Then, she turned and walked towards the light at the end of the beach. John, now about 70% sure he has the weed, grabbed his pack and Jade’s, and ran to catch up to Jade and the gem/person thing.

“W-wait up!” He shouted as he ran to catch up. The sand was getting into his boots, but he didn’t care. He wanted answers, or, at the very least, to know whether or not this was a weed dream. On one hand, it would have to be pretty strong weed to make a hallucination carry Jade, but on the other hand John had wind powers.  Who the fuck knows what weed could do.

“What, what are you?” John asked the possible hallucination once he caught up.

“I’m a gem, John.” She said, not turning around.  Well that answered nothing.  John was starting to think this might be LSD instead of weed.

“So, is Jade gonna be fine?” he nervously said, looking at Jade, who was silently snoring in the Gem’s arms.

“She should be. However, I don’t know if my healing capabilities are as strong as they used to be, so it’s lucky that we are close to the temple. Rose can make sure she’s fully healed.”

“Rose? Why is she in some temple, and since when can she heal?” John asked, now about 90% sure he’s high as a kite.  That question made the gem laugh lightly, but she never faltered as she walked across the beach.

“Not your Rose, silly. You'll see soon enough.”

“How do you know my name anyways? And on that note, do you even have one? A name?”

“Hmm...” The gem thought about how to answer the questions for a while. “Well, my name is Kyanite. And as for how I know your name, that'll take a bit more time to explain than we have walking on this beach.”

“But you will though. This isn't going to be some mysterious bullshit like in Harry Potter where you don't tell me anything until I'm ‘ready for it’ right?”

“I don't know what you mean but yes, I will tell you as soon as I am able.”

John frowned but continued to follow Kyanite up the beach. They were reaching the bend now, and John gaped at what appeared to be a giant woman carved into the cliff face.  She had...were there six arms? There was a house built into the cliff, and as John watched, a van pulled up on the sand from the other direction. The door opened and a fairly tall figure got out. They turned around as the other doors of the van opened, their mouth open to start saying something before their eyes fell on Kyanite. They froze, and John noticed an odd shape on their forehead.  


	5. Vriska ====> Freak Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> now back to your regularly scheduled fugitive escape

Vriska stayed underneath the bushes until the unseen gems faded out of her hearing. Then she ran all the way back to the ship. It was still daytime, so everyone else was asleep, but she kicked them all awake to tell them what she heard. 

“What the fuck, Serket?” Karkat protested, swatting her foot away. 

“Everybody get up! Unless you all feel like dying a horrible slow death!!!!!!!!” Vriska hissed, and over in the corner Sollux shrugged.

“I’m good.” He said. 

“Get the fuck up Captor!”

“Vriska what's the problem?” Aradia demanded, standing up off the floor. Vriska pointed viciously out the door at the dense woods.

“The problem is that there are _gems_ on this planet!”

Well if someone wasn't awake before, they were now. Karkat was helping Terezi up, even as she insisted she was fine, and Feferi was hurriedly trying to get her hair out of her face and not completely knotted. Kanaya looked nervously at Vriska.

“Are you sure, did you see them?” She asked, and Vriska rolled her eyes.

“No, I didn’t see them but I sure as fuck heard them. This planet is Yellow Diamonds.”

That brought horror stricken faces onto the rest of the trolls, and their gazes immediately shifted to the still open door of the broken ship. Karkat stood up a little straighter.

“Sollux, how fast can you fix this ship.” He said, his voice oddly quiet. Sollux looked around, contemplating.

“I can get it running maybe by the early morning tomorrow, but it won't be perfect.”

“That's fine just do it.”

* * *

The next few hours were spent in an air of anxiety. Sollux tersely barked orders and everybody else ran around doing what they could to fix the ship. Kanaya worked on the wiring, threading them around each other to connect what they needed to. Terezi carried parts back and forth, since nobody wanted to push her too much, but she insisted on doing the welding of the metal parts. Sollux had shrugged and let her have at it, and she did it in record time. Feferi, Vriska, and Aradia stood watch, as Tavros helped wherever he could. He didn't have much technological expertise, none really, but he did help Sollux hold parts of the ship together as they were attached. Karkat had become the unofficial leader, and oversaw making sure everybody was doing their job. Although he mostly stuck to the ship, Vriska had yelled at him after he checked up on her one too many times.

With all eight of them working nonstop, the moon was only just starting to set when Sollux stood up.

“Ok. The ship can run, and it can get uth the fuck off thith planet, but I don’t know how far it will actually make it.” He said, and Karkat sighed in relief. 

“Fine, whatever. We’ll deal with that once we’re away from hostile gems. I really just don't want to have to deal with them.”

“Yeah I’ve heard some horror stories. Their weapons can wreak some real havoc.” Vriska cut in. 

“However,” Karkat continued, ignoring Vriska, “I don't think anyone is fit to pilot this hunk of junk right now because have been awake for-fucking-ever.”

“I, for one, vote to sleep.” Terezi said, plopping herself down on the floor and stretching out. Everyone else chimed in with agreement, and lay down. Light was starting to poke through the sky, and Karkat sat down himself.

“We’re leaving in the morning.” He said, but everyone was already asleep. He sighed, and closed his eyes.

* * *

He was woken up by a thundering of feet. Followed immediately by shouting. The others woke up too, jolting awake and already pulling out their weapons. Vriska cursed, peeking out of one of the small windows on the ship. 

“They found us.” She said, starting to stand up. Karkat grabbed her by the wrist.

“Wait. We need a plan.” He said, but Vriska just rolled her eyes.

“If we stay here they’ll destroy the ship. We fight. That's the plan.” Her dice were already rolling on the floor as she spoke, but Karkat never saw the outcome. Before the dice had even finished their roll, Vriska was out the door and in the middle of a cluster of gems. Aradia followed her without hesitation, whip out and Sollux hot on her heels. His psiioniics were full blast, pulling weapons out of gem hands. Karkat sighed, and his gaze was drawn to Terezi, who had a hand inconspicuously on her back. Her gem. 

“Are you okay?” He asked, and she shrugged.

“Fine. I’m going out there.” She said, and Karkat grabbed her wrist.

“What? No! What if you get found out?” His voice lowered to a whisper, since there were still three trolls in the ship, although Kanaya had her chainsaw out and was edging towards the door. Terezi shrugged him off and pulled out her sword. 

“I have to help.” She said, before running out the door and stabbing a gem that was sneaking up behind Vriska. Karkat groaned, and pulled out his sickles, following Kanaya out the door. 

The rest of the fight was a blur, and Karkat was actually glad he had told the others about his blood because trying to keep that a secret right now would be like one troll trying to keep water from going down a waterfall. It would be fucking impossible. He kept a watchful eye on Terezi, but she seemed to be holding her own surprisingly well. However, they were still horribly outnumbered, and the gems just kept coming. They couldn't hold out forever, they were all injured and Sollux was sweating with over-exertion of his psiioniics. Tavros was controlling some smaller animals to help him fight, but there didn't seem to be any larger animals on this planet that would be more effective. Karkat watched as he retreated into the trees, probably to get a better range of animals. 

After a while, Karkat’s arms felt like lead, and while the gemstones on the ground were piling up, soldiers just kept coming. Who knows how long they’d been fighting. Suddenly, Vriska cursed loudly and dropped the sword her dice had become, retreating to the ship and putting her hands at her temples.

“Fuck this!” She shouted. “We are getting fucking nowhere! Let’s see you assholes get through this!” 

She closed her eyes and the next thing Karkat saw was Sollux stiffening. His hands shot out to his sides and psiioniic energy arced from them to the ground. It was stronger than anything Karkat had seen Sollux do, and he knew what Vriska was doing. He didn't have much time to get mad at her, though, because Sollux’s flashing eyes exploded with energy, vaporizing gems and destroying the forest around them. Karkat had to leap out of the way to avoid the beam, pulling Terezi with him. Aradia wasn't so lucky. She had been fighting a gem twice her size, and had been put in a headlock. 

When the gem didn’t move out of Sollux’s way, neither did Aradia. It wasn't like in the Troll action movies, where time slows down as the person dies. One second she was there, struggling against the grip of the gem, and the next they were both gone. 

Vriska’s eyes snapped open, her face shocked, and Sollux crumpled to the ground, unconscious. 

Karkat surveyed the battlefield. Sollux was down, Kanaya was bloody, Feferi was barely holding up, and Tavros was nowhere to be found. 

“Get back to the ship!” He shouted, making the executive decision to flee. They had already lost one member, he wasn't losing another. The loss of Aradia hadn’t even fully sunk in yet, the only thing Karkat had processed was how bad he felt for Sollux. He was glad he was unconscious, at least he didn't have to think about it. 

Kanaya and Feferi turned and ran back to the ship, hopping over fallen gems and darting in the door. Vriska started to make her way there too, but got roped into combat with a gem. Karkat looked at their own path, packed with enemy gems and no way through. Terezi grabbed his hand. He looked at her, and saw a light glow through the back of her shirt. He looked back at Sollux, lying motionless on the ground. A gem grabbed him by the ankles and started to drag him away. Karkat felt his gut twist, he knew he couldn't rescue Sollux and make it out alive. Then Terezi’s wings burst out of her gem. They drew the attention of everyone on the battlefield, including Vriska. Her eyes widened in hurt, then narrowed in anger and suspicion. 

“You’re one of _them??_ ” She shouted, stabbing the gem she had been fighting while still staring at Terezi. Terezi began to fly Karkat back to the ship, landing next to Vriska. The enemy gems had started to fall back, stalling at the sight of Terezi’s wings, but they hadn't left the clearing yet.

“It’s not like that, Vriska. I’m not on their side!” Terezi said, reaching out her hand to help Vriska to the ship.

Vriska took a step back.

“But you have a gem.”

“Yes, she does, but that doesn't mean she’s one of them!” Karkat shouted. “Grab her hand so we can get the fuck out of here!”

Vriska shook her head, then looked back at Karkat incredulously.

“You knew!” She sneered, turning to Terezi. “You told _him_ , but not your moirail?”

“Vriska please! We need to go now!” Terezi pleaded. Vriska crossed her arms. Cerulean blood was dripping down her face, but it didn't faze her. 

Terezi dropped her hand.

“I’m sorry, Vriska.” She said, reactivating her wings. “We have to go.”

Vriska didn't acknowledge she had said anything. 

“Be safe.” Terezi turned away and flew back to the ship, pulling Karkat with her. They landed in the doorway, and as Karkat ran to the cockpit, Terezi collapsed in a corner. Karkat lifted the ship off the ground, and he watched out the window as Vriska charged the gems again. She was quickly overtaken by dozens of soldiers, and a gem lifted her unconscious body over its shoulder. Another grabbed Sollux, and Karkat saw one emerge from the trees holding Tavros. A sick feeling settled in Karkat’s gut, he didn't want to leave them behind. But they had no chance of getting them back. He set the ship on the tentative autopilot Sollux had installed, and then went to sit down next to Terezi. 

“Are you okay?” He asked. She sniffed, wiping her scent node. 

“Does it look like I'm fucking okay?” She snapped. “Why can’t she see that I’m not one of them? Like, sure, I get we’ve been at war with the gems for centuries, I _get_ that they’re fucking terrible! I didn't ask to have a gem on my back! I didn't ask to have a connection to the race that's killed so many trolls! I didn't-” She cut off, burying her head in her knees. Karkat put his hand over hers. Kanaya came over and sat down next to Terezi. 

“If it makes you feel any better,” She said, “I don’t think of you any differently.”

“Thanks,” Terezi mumbled, “but that really doesn’t help.”

Kanaya nodded, but stayed next to Terezi. Feferi was over in another corner, anxiously twirling her trident. Fuschia blood was smeared on her face and through her hair. Karkat sighed. He got up, trusting Kanaya to do a better job comforting Terezi, and went back to the pilot's chair. He just hoped the next planet they landed on didn't have gems.

* * *

Karkat didn't know how long he had been flying, just that he _finally_ had found a planet that looked suitable. There was water, there was greenery, and it was very obviously not being colonized by gems. The others were asleep in the back of the ship, and so Karkat didn't bother to announce anything, he just started steering the ship towards the planet. He didn't get very far, though, before the ship was drawn into the planet’s atmosphere and flames began to lick the sides of the ship. Panels were pulled away from the sides of the ship, and Karkat leaped out of the pilot’s chair with a curse. 

“Wake up!” He shouted, startling the other three awake. They looked around in concern as Karkat started prepping the escape pod. He noticed with a sinking feeling that there was no way to release it from inside the pod. Well, at least the others would make it out. He motioned for them to enter. 

“But what about you?” Kanaya asked, seeing the problem. 

“I’ll be fine, you guys need to get out.” 

“I’m not leaving you.” Terezi said, crossing her arms. 

“Yes you fucking are, now get in the pod!”

“No.”

“Yes!”

_“No!”_

_“Fine!”_ Karkat shouted. “Fine! Stay! Kanaya, Feferi, you two get in the fucking pod.”

They looked at each other hesitantly, then entered the small pod. Karkat shut the door behind it and released the pod from the main ship, watching as it fell away to the planet’s surface below. Panels continued to come off of the ship, and Karkat looked at Terezi.

“How far do you think you can fly? Can you fly us to the surface?”

She pursed her lips.

“I’m not sure. Is there water below us on this planet?”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of water.”

“I can probably get us to the point where a drop into the water wouldn’t kill us.”

“Good enough.” Karkat said, moving to the main door of the ship. He glanced out the window, they were nearing the ground too fast, there was no way they could slow down in time. He hit the button to open the door and grabbed Terezi’s arm. The door was immediately torn off as it opened, and the two trolls were sucked out of the ship, through a thin haze of flame. Terezi protected Karkat from most of the fire, instinctively activating her wings and shielding them both. Then she slowed their fall, flapping her wings gently to keep them from rocketing to the ground. The ship fell past them, continuing towards a beach, and Karkat and Terezi were approaching impact with the ocean below. Terezi deactivated her wings, and the two trolled plummeted the rest of the distance. 

When they hit the water, everything went black.


	6. Rose and Dave=> Do some X-Files shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I have seen exactly one half of an episode of the x files

Rose was relieved they had finally found a small stream. Dave was starting to look a bit pale even though he maintained that he was fine. He was definitely not fine. She got to work on fixing him up, recalling on her vast medical experience she got from watching YouTube videos and reading medical books. It wasn't great, but he would survive for now. 

“So,” Dave said, the light from his campfire giving his shades a dramatic glow, as if he was about to impart some deep spiritual wisdom, “everything's gone to shit, hasn't it?”

“Damn Dave.” Rose said, acting surprised. “That was some deep spiritual wisdom you've just imparted with me. I don't know if my mind will ever be able to truly comprehend the layers to what you just said. I'll be on death’s door, about to take the final step into the unknown, and just before I do, I'll remember this moment, and discover the meaning of life.”

The two sat in silence, accompanied only by their own thoughts and the sounds of insects trying to find someone to fuck.

“Do you ever think we’ll get to have normal lives, Rose?

“I don't know Dave. Will we ever live a life where we aren't chased down by a questionable government agency, constantly evading the law and never being able to even go to hospitals out of fear that they'll find us and do even more fucked up experiments on us? Who knows, but that's the life we're living now. That's the life we knew we were choosing when we escaped.”

“Thanks Rose, for that completely depressing statement. I feel way better now.”

“I live to please.”

They chuckled at Rose’s quip. Rose put out the fire and they both went to sleep, praying to whatever god that might be listening that they wouldn't wake up in captivity.

* * *

 

Luckily, someone might've been listening because they woke up in their makeshift campsite with no one around waiting to take them back to their hell.  Dave’s arm was still throbbing, but it wasn't bleeding and seemed fine.  

They followed the stream, hoping for a small chance it would lead to the beach.

“Hey Rose, you remember that time I accidentally burned one of your books and your solution to that was to throw an entire gallon of water at it?”

She chuckled. “Yeah. You're lucky I'd already read that one or you'd have drowned in your sleep.”

“Or what about that time Mr. Egbert put spicy peppers in all our omelets and John couldn't stop trying to blow air in his mouth. Or the time Jade told me to burn a cassette tape so that her mixtape could be fire. And the time you told me that I was hot and I thought you were complimenting me but in reality my hair was on fire. And that one time-”

“Dave!!!” Rose screamed, scaring away several small woodland creatures. 

“W-what?”

“I've called your name three times already and you've just kept rambling. Now will you shut up and look.” 

Rose pointed at a dot in the sky. The dot became a small spaceship shaped dot, which became a medium spaceship shaped dot, which gave birth to a small escape pod shaped dot before becoming a large spaceship shaped dot and crashing quite a ways away. Oh also the small escape pod shaped dot turned out to be an escape pod which flew over their heads and crashed about seventy feet away.

“Rose, are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

“Lets fucking go Mulder.”

“Lead the goddamn way Scully.”

If this wasn't a written medium and had auditory possibilities you fucking bet that the X-Files theme would be playing right now. As Dave and Rose got closer to the escape pod like Benjamin Tennyson getting the Omnitrix, Feferi was working on trying to wake up Kanaya, who had passed out when the pod crashed. 

“Cod damnit. Cod fucking damnit. Wake up. Kanaya wake up. Shit. SHIT!”

The pod was pitch black except for a few fires illuminating the interior. The whole thing was very dramatic with the red light contrasting the dark green of Kanaya’s blood. And then the whole thing was ruined when Rose opened the pod. But then, Kanaya’s eyes started to slowly open, and she saw Rose, with the sunlight illuminating her like a heavenly being, and Kanaya’s heart started to beat very rapidly.

“Girl, pretty.” And then Kanaya passed out again.

“Hey Rose do the aliens speak English or are we gonna have translation problems?”

“They speak the English words ‘girl’ and ‘pretty’ very well. Beyond that I have no idea. Hey can you understand me?”

“Um yes? Wh-”

“They speak English! Score one for cosmic coincidences.” Rose took a good look at the aliens. They had grey skin and candy corn colored horns. The still not passed out one seemed to be avoiding the sunlight, but beyond that they were relatively humanoid. “So what kind of aliens are you? Cause you got the grey skin but you don't have the black eyes.”

If Feferi was asked on a scale of one to ten how confused she was, she would say a 38. “I'm sorry who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing?”

Dave climbed up the pod and looked at the trolls. “My name is Mulder. My partner here is Scully. We're with the X-Files division. Gonna have to ask you a couple of questions.”


	7. Nepeta => Train

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nepeta's sleep schedule is #relatable

Turns out, Purrsuer training is just as terrible as it sounds.  Sure, Nepeta had always woken up as soon as the moon was rising, but she was never pushed to exhaustion throughout the entire night and then expected to do it all again the next night.  Her muscles ached, her eyes struggled to stay open, and her hair was  _ terrible. _  She had never cared how it looked until she literally could not make it look good.  

The worst part was the Testing.  Purrsuers had to be stealthy, limber, and silent killing machines, ready to sneak up on anything or anyone.  Nepeta had plenty of practice in the woods by her cave, but nothing had prepared her for sneaking up on an adult troll.  In the Testing, once every few nights, that's exactly what she was supposed to do.  She was expected to ‘kill’ them, or at least injure them in some way, without them landing a hit on her, and it was practically impossible even with Nepeta’s naturally small stature.  And of course, this wouldn’t be Alternia without an incentive.

The troll with the lowest score after Testing was culled.  

Nepeta had managed to stay in the middle of the pack, slowly rising up, but every Testing night made anxiety shoot through her body.  All of the other Purrsuers-in-training seemed nervous too, but there was a rule that you couldnt help another trainee unless they were your blockmate.  And even then the most you could do was help them train in your block during the day, therefore losing time to sleep.  

So yeah, Nepeta didn't sleep much.   Between the training itself and practicing with Ketrit, she didn't have the time to have a decent sleep schedule.  

Speaking of Ketrit, that troll had something going on.  Nepeta couldn’t put her claws on it, but she was gonna figure it out sooner or later.  She always looked especially nervous every Test, more so than the other trainees, and even after Nepeta had entered her recuperacoon she could see Ketrit still awake.  She didn’t seem to be doing anything, she was just...sitting.  She was nice, though, and was a good friend to Nepeta in a place where she hadn't been expecting to make a friend.  She could use one, after three quarters of her other friends ditched her for space and ran from the law.

Damn she missed Equius.

Right now, all the trainees were doing ten laps around the compound, and Nepeta felt her body ache already, even though she was only at six.  Ketrit was next to her, somehow seeming less winded than Nepeta.  Whenever Nepeta questioned her on her ability to run for longer than Nepeta, who grew up running through the trees, she simply answered ‘I’ve ran farther than this before’.  

That was weird, and Nepeta was friends with Gamzee, who was the epitome of weirdness.

The ten laps seemed to last forever, they always did, but soon all the trainees gathered in the main yard.  

“That took four minutes too long.” The olive-blooded director sneered.  “You should be able to run twelve laps in the amount of time you took tonight.  Push-ups, now!”

Nepeta grumbled as she dropped to the ground.  She really didn't like the director.  The only plus side to all of this was that Nepeta was stronger than she’d ever been, and she was pretty strong to begin with.  

Only after every trainee had completed seventy push-ups were they allowed to go get something to eat.  Nepeta still had hours of training left, which caused her to drag her hands down her face and groan as she walked to the food tent.  She dropped her tray of barely edible grubloaf onto a table and rubbed her sore biceps.  Ketrit sat down next to her.  

“The director seriously needs to calm down.” Nepeta said, and Ketrit widened her eyes in agreement.  

“I know right?  It was just a few minutes!”  

“I mean, seventy push-ups isn’t that bad, but  _ after _ that run?  My recupurracoon is gonna be so fucking comfurrtable after the rest of training.”

Ketrit giggled, and Nepeta raised her eyebrows.  

“Sorry, it’s just...always funny hearing you curse.  You don’t seem the type.”

The comment made Nepeta’s face fall.  Ketrit immediately asked her what was wrong, as she felt tears prick at her eyes.  

“I’m fine, it's just that my moirail never liked me cursing.”

Ketrit looked at her sympathetically.

“You must miss them a lot.  I miss my moirail too.”

“You have a moirail?”

“Yeah.  He’s a lot higher of a caste than me, so he’s off training somewhere else.  I miss him so much.”

Nepeta smiled sadly.

“I miss mine too.  He was always a little overprotective of me, but he just wanted me to be safe.” She said.  

“Do have anyone besides your moirail?” Ketrit asked, and Nepeta sighed.

“No.  I was flushed furr one of my friends but he’s long gone now.  I don’t know where he is.  What about you?”

“Sometimes I have to auspistice between my moirail and his kismesis, but other than that, me neither.”

Just then, the shrill dong shouter rang, signaling the end of their eating time.  Ketrit groaned lightly.

“Maybe tonight you can tell me about your moirail?  It might help with missing him.” She said to Nepeta, who smiled.

“That sounds nice.”

It seemed like the rest of the training sped by, as Ketrit kept giving Nepeta supportive glances whenever she needed them.  Her thoughts kept traveling to Equius though, and where he must be unhappy since he never managed to get the hang of archery before they turned seven.  That was his dream.  She just wanted to see him again, was that too much to ask?  And she wanted to let Ketrit see her moirail again too, it wasn't fair that both of them were so far away.  

Nepeta was so relieved that there wasn't a Test that night, since she could just go back to her block and relax.  She wanted to sleep, but she wasn't going to today.  She needed to talk about Equius, no matter how hard it would be.  When she came out of the ablution block, Ketrit was perched impossibly on top of her recuperacoon, picking at a chain around her neck.  She perked up as Nepeta entered the block again, dropping the chain back under her shirt.  

“Tired?” She asked, and Nepeta laughed.

“Physically? Yeah.  But I’m ready to stay up.”

“Me too.”

Nepeta managed to get into the same position that Ketrit was in, cross legged on top of her recuperacoon, and faced across the block.  

“So, what’s your moirails name?” Ketrit asked, and Nepeta got a fond look on her face.  

“Equius.  Equius Zahhak.  He’s a blue blood.”

“So he’s training with the Ruffiannihilators?”

“Yeah.  He wanted to be an Archeradicator but he kept breaking his bows.” Nepeta giggled.  “Not furr lack of trying on his part though, he had a whole other specibus for broken bows.”

She laughed about that for a minute, remembering the piles of useless wood and string littered through Equius’s hive.  She looked at the claws hidden in her glove nostalgically, they had been a gift from Equius after they began their moiraillegiance.  

“You said he was overprotective?” Ketrit prompted, leaning forward in interest.  Nepeta grinned.

“Furr good reason.  The woods around the cave I lived in were filled with beasts and lusii, he never liked me hunting them.  He would insist on coming with me a lot, just to make sure I didn’t get hurt, even though he hated watching me.  I wonder what he’d think of this training.”

“You hunted lusii?  That’s...pretty badass, honestly.” Ketrit’s eyes widened.  

“Yep!” Nepeta said proudly.  “Me and Pounce, my lusus, were unstoppable!”

“That’s really cool.  My lusus and I didn’t hunt, but my ancestor used to do something similar.”

That piqued Nepeta’s interest.

“Your ancestor?”

“Yeah.  She was known as the Pelterer, making animal hides.  She had to get the animal skins herself.”  Ketrit’s face turned slightly dreamy, before she snapped back to attention and looked at Nepeta.  “What about your ancestor?”

Nepeta flushed a slight green.

“I, uh...don’t actually know my ancestor.  Some of my furriends knew theirs, but not me.”

Ketrit’s eyes flicked down to Nepeta’s sign.  Then she shrugged.

“It doesn’t really matter.  It’s not like they dictate who you are.  So, what else do you like to do?”

 

* * *

 

Nepeta continued telling stories until she could see the sunlight through the blacked out windows.  It was then that she yawned and realized just how tired she was, mumbling that she was going the sleep and dropping into her recuperacoon.  She felt a pang in her chest.  She had been telling so many stories, so many memories, and she wondered why they hadn’t made her upset.  But now, in the silence of the sopor slime, they surrounded her.  The good times she had with Equius, the romping through the woods with Terezi, the rare times she got Karkat to roleplay with her.  Stories she hadn’t even told Ketrit.  Even though she didn’t need to breathe in the slime, she felt like she was suffocating.  

She just missed them all so much.  Here, all she had was Ketrit, a troll that she didn’t really know all that much about.  

She was so lonely. 


	8. Steven ===> Calm Everybody Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> steven just wants a break

Steven just wants a week. Just one week. Heck, he'd settle for four days. But seriously. Just a period of time more than 24 hours where nothing happens. Please.

They were just coming back from the barn, Steven had almost died from failure to ignore gravity after falling off a plane. He was hoping to at the very least get a good nights sleep before something else happened, but obviously he couldn't even get inside his house. Luckily, Kyanite was the first gem since Lapis who didn't try to kill him within five minutes of meeting him. Guess it was something about blue gems that made them not want to kill him.

Luckily, both John and Jade were fine. Once John found out about Steven’s healing spit, he told him to try giving Jade a wet willy to make sure to get the healing spread through her head the most. Jade was not happy waking up to Steven’s finger in her ear.  Although she mostly seemed to blame John for it, without Steven even telling her it was John’s idea.  It was funny though, since she woke up yelling and reminded Steven of Peridot.  Some of the words she said Steven didn’t understand, and for some reason Pearl looked scandalized, but John started laughing and soon Steven joined in.  

The three of them fell asleep trying to one up each other with weird things about their lives.  They eventually decided it was a tie.  Steven probably could have won, if he had mentioned the whole ‘my mom is a war criminal’ thing, but he didn’t want to overwhelm John and Jade.  While Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl all talked with Kyanite and found out where she had been, the two humans had been telling Steven all about the SKAIA Labs that they had escaped.  

Steven probably would have been obsessing over the fact that these two new friends were magical just like him (although through different means), if he wasn’t currently asleep.  His dreams were weird, although they were in his own mind.  He didn’t want another ‘body switch’ episode to happen on top of all the craziness that Kyanite, John, and Jade had brought.  He dreamed about John and Jade though, with his brain making up scenarios that he imagined they might have gotten into at SKAIA Labs. They had started to tell him about their friends before they fell asleep, and so they were also in Steven’s dreams, but he didn’t know what they looked like or their names so he improvised.  

After what happened the day before, Steven probably should have expected to wake up to a retaliatory wet willy from Jade, but it still startled him.  

“Heh, sorry Steven.” Jade said, giggling as she moved away from him.  “I’d blame it on John but it actually was my idea.”

“Yeah.”  John said.  “I’d never use the same prank twice.”

“Are you seriously forgetting the apple juice prank.” Jade said, turning to face John.  “You did that at least twice a week.”

“Well, okay yeah, but it’s Dave.  He deserves it for not appreciating the cinematic masterpiece that is Little Monsters!”

“Did Rose deserve it when you put a bucket over her door that ended up getting tangled in her hair?”

“It was an accident!”

“Sure, and you definitely weren’t trying to get payback for when she made the shower water freezing cold halfway through your shower.”

John and Jade kept bickering, but one part really stood out to Steven.

“So, uh,” Steven said, trying to act casually, “who’s this Rose you guys are talking about?”

John raised his eyebrows.

“She’s one of our friends.  Why?”

“It’s nothing, it's just Rose is my mom’s name too.  I’ve never met another person named Rose before.”

“Well,” John started, “Rose is really nice.  A little spooky at times, but you’ll like her.”

“Oh!” Steven said.  “Kinda like Lapis!”  

It made sense.  Apparently this Rose was a bit dark but was overall nice and a good person, just like Lapis, who can be pretty scary when threatened.  

“Who’s that?” Jade asked.

“She’s another gem, she lives in our barn.”

“Oh, ok.”

Steven was surprised at how easily John and Jade accepted that gems existed, but he supposed that their own magical-ness made it a bit less farfetched.  He found out about John’s power when mid-story he made a juice box float over to him, but he had to ask to find out what Jade could do.  She had earth powers!  She had shown Steven by making a plant grow before his eyes, but he was sure she could do a lot more than that.  

“So when are your friends gonna get here?” He asked, and John shrugged.  

“We got separated from Rose, Dave, my dad, and Rose’s mom, so I don’t know where any of them are.  We were supposed to head for a town called Beach City, though, so that’s probably where they’ll end up.”

“You’re  _ in  _ Beach City!” Steven said, and John looked out the window even though the cliff blocked the view of the actual city.

“Really?” He said.  “It looked more like a town to me.  How the hell did we get here so fast?”

Jade rolled her eyes.

“John, it’s obvious.  You  _ flew _ .”

“Oh.  Right.”

Suddenly Pearl called to him from the kitchen. 

“Steven, can you all come down here for a second?” 

When the three of them got down, they saw Kyanite and the other gems all around the counter.  Kyanite in particular was looking at Jade.

“What do you need, Pearl?” Steven asked.  

“Well,” She started, “Kyanite was just telling us what happened to her after the war, and where she’s been.”

She opened her mouth to say more, but Steven got sidetracked.

“So you were an original Crystal Gem?” Steven asked, turning to Kyanite.  She seemed really nice, and Steven was hoping this didn’t end like Bismuth.

“Yes I was!” Kyanite said cheerily.  “I wasn’t around for the end of the war, although judging by the fact there's only you three left, that may have been a good thing.”

“Where were you?” Steven asked.  Kyanite’s hand brushed her gem.

“Well, I was supposed to be meeting Rose Quartz about something I had overheard, but my two friends came to show me the way to her current base, and we were captured.  We were going to be shattered, but then the Agate in charge of the army that captured us had a different idea.  We were all different castes, I was an aristocrat under Blue Diamond, Tourmaline was a Kindergartner under Pink, and Fluorite was a scout under White, and this Agate sought to make a lesson out of us.  One that shattering didn’t quite do.  She thought that instead of using our gems as tools, she would wear them as trophies.  To prove to the rest of the rebellion that they truly didn’t mean anything to Homeworld, that they would never be seen as a real gem again, and that all they were good for was looking pretty, like a Pearl.” Kyanite glanced at Pearl.  “No offense, dear.” 

Pearl waved her concern off.  Steven was staring in excitement, it was always so interesting when he met a new gem!  Sometimes a bad, dangerous, life-threatening kind of interesting, but interesting nonetheless.  Kyanite turned back to Steven.

“So that's how I ended up in a necklace.  When the homeworld armies fled Earth, the three of us were left behind, thankfully, but we weren’t found by gems.  Humans who had stumbled upon gem artifacts recognized the power that the jewelry trapping us contained, and took us to a lab to study us.”

“I’m sorry,” Jade interrupted, “but if you were in a necklace, how do you know what happened to you?”

“Well I was already healed inside my gemstone, and so I could basically see out of it.  By the way, thank you for freeing my friends and I when you escaped, I had begun to think we were never getting out of there!”

“No problem!” John said.  

“If I might ask, where is Fluorite?” Kyanite asked. “Jade, you had him, didn't you?  His gem was green?”

Jade furrowed her eyebrows, her hand going to her neck. 

“I did….but I-” Her green eyes widened. “Oh no.”

“What?” Steven asked. Jade groaned, grabbing her hair in frustration. 

“When I fell out of the truck, I think the necklace came off!  I don't remember much but I didn't have it when I woke up here so that's where it must be!”

Kyanite wrung her hands. 

“We’ll need to find him, but as long as no one finds him before we do  he should be fine. We can wait until your friends get here.”

“I remember Fluorite, I think. He was one of the most energetic rebels. We’ll get him back.” Pearl said. 

Suddenly Garnet strode into the house, her normal blank expression somehow more serious that normal. 

“Pearl, something just entered the atmosphere.” She said, and Pearl ran to follow Garnet back outside. Steven followed, of course, with Kyanite, John, and Jade close behind. What else was gonna happen today? First Steven meets a new gem, makes friends with magical humans, and now something's coming from space? What's next, it turns out to be a new type of alien?

When Steven reached the railing of the house, he looked up and saw what was obviously a spaceship streaking down towards the beach. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl were all on the beach, watching carefully, and Kyanite ran down to join them. The ship continued to come closer to Earth, and as Steven watched, a section broke off at a different angle, heading off away from Beach City, but the main ship was still headed for the coast. 

“What is that?” John shouted, pointing up at the ship. 

“It's a ship!” Steven shouted back. John rolled his eyes. 

“I get that, I mean what's  _ that _ .”

Steven saw what he meant. Two figures had jumped out of the ship, one carrying the other, and it looked like they had...wings?  But they were on fire?  Steven didn't have much time to watch them before they plummeted into the ocean, and the ship made impact with the beach. Fire was everywhere, and pieces of metal came dangerously close to hitting Steven. He felt a cool breeze around him and looked to see John blowing out the fire, and making sure the debris wouldn't hit Steven or Jade. It wasn't quite as bad an explosion as the hand ship that Peridot had piloted to Earth, but it had been so sudden that Steven didn't have time to summon his shield or his bubble. 

“Steven!” He heard Pearl shout. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine!” He called back. “Whose ship is this?” 

He started to run down to the gems now that the worst of the explosion was gone. Pearl, Amethyst, and Kyanite were standing around, confused. Garnet was nowhere to be seen. 

“And where’s Garnet?” He asked. 

“I have no clue what this ship is.” Amethyst said. “It doesn't look like any gem ship I've seen.”

“It's not a gem ship, that much is for certain. I've seen this ship design before, I just can't place it…” Pearl trailed off as Garnet emerged from the ocean, holding two unconscious figures. Her face was troubled. She dropped the figures onto the sand, and as their faces were revealed, Pearl and Kyanite gasped. Steven and Amethyst just stared. They really  _ were  _ a new type of alien. Grey skin, horns, the whole shebang. 

“Are those...trolls?” Kyanite asked uncertainly. 

“But there's only two! They always work in large groups!” Pearl said, moving forward to examine the ‘trolls’. She leaned closer to one, and let out a soft ‘oh my’. 

“This one has a gem!” She exclaimed. Immediately Garnet crouched down to examine it for herself, blocking Steven’s view of the one alien. As they were looking at the one, the other alien stirred. This one seemed male to Steven, he wasn't sure why though. He opened his eyes, revealing yellow and grey eyes that focused on Pearl and Garnet. They widened slightly, and then narrowed. He snarled, showing sharp fangs. Then his head fell into his hands. 

“You have  _ got _ to be shitting me.”

Steven didn’t get to hear the rest of the alien’s rant because Pearl swiftly covered his ears.


	9. Tavros, Vriska, and Sollux -==> Wake Up

Tavros wished he had stayed on Alternia. At least they would have given him a quick death. At least he wouldn’t have been tortured. At least he wouldn’t have become a science experiment.

There were two of them. Nearly identical, except for the placement of their gem. One had it where her right eye would be. One had it where her left would be. From what he overheard as they talked, Righty was called 4-SS, and Lefty was called 2-XD. Tavros couldn’t move, his arms strapped to his side and his legs bound to a table. His body felt numb, but other than that he wasn’t hurt. He didn’t have high hopes for it staying that way though. The two gems were pondering over some sort of screen right now, but soon they would focus on him again.  

He was scared, he didn’t know what they were going to do to him. Where were the others? Did they make it off that planet? Did they even know where he was?

Did they care enough to come save him?

“Ooh, 4-SS look! It’s finally awake.” The gem determined to be 2-XD spoke. Their voice was sickeningly sweet, like the faygo Gamzee always drank. It rang through the pristine block. The other gem laughed, her bright white gem glinting in the light.  

“Oh my, don’t it’s brain scans look so nice! This one will be fun.”

“Did you see it’s records? A troll with zoolingualism will make _such_ a good project.”

“The other Spinels are going to be so jealous when they find out that we got the new trolls.”

The two gems continued talking, circling Tavros as he tried to speak.  

“So, I'm thinking cybernetics with this one. It could certainly help in that department.”

“I want to study the zoolingualism though. It could allow us to make a breakthrough in finding out how some trolls control others.”

“That is an excellent point!”

“W-what's happening?” Tavros forced out, already knowing the answer.

“It can speak!” 4-SS said, startling him.

“It has such a sweet voice don't you think. Tell me, do all Bronze bloods have such sweet voices?”

“Uhm, I- I mean- I- what?”

“Oh now look what you've done. You're confusing it.””

Tavros was completely lost. He knew he was on the gem Homeworld, he had to be, but what did they mean by project? Cybernetics?  

“What are you g-going to do?” He forced out, and the Spinel on the right laughed.  

“Just listen to it, it’s so...harmless.  How it survived life on Alternia is a mystery.”

“We can find that out when we get inside its brain.”

Suddenly a ding came from the screen in front 4-SS, and her smile only widened.  

“2-XD, you can have your fun with this one. The vitals on Cerulean just picked up, it might wake up soon. If Bronze gives you any trouble let me know.”

Then she got up, her head brushing the ceiling of the block, and made her way to the door. A scanner locked onto her gem, and then the door opened.

Tavros was left alone with the other Spinel, who smiled down at him. It sent a shiver down his spine.  

After writing down a few more things on her screens, she waved her hand and they disappeared. Her gem began to glow and she pulled a large sewing needle out of it, twirling it expertly.  

“Let’s begin.”

 

* * *

 

When Vriska finally came to, everything hurt.  Her head was pounding, probably from overexertion of her powers, her leg felt broken, and blood was everywhere. Where _was_ she? The last thing she remembered was fighting, controlling Sollux, _Aradia_ , and then…

Terezi.

“Oh good you’re awake.” A voice rang in her head, pulling her from her thoughts. “I was worried you had died. It’s not always you get to study a troll with the ability to control other trolls.  Especially a Cerulean blood, according to my records your caste doesn’t normally have psychic abilities.”

Vriska tried to process what the voice was saying, but her head hurt. She couldn’t think past the pain. She slowly took in her surroundings. The room she was in was pure white. Her head hurt. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. She was strapped to some kind of chair. She couldn’t move her arms. She couldn’t move her legs. Her head hurt. There was a figure. On the far side of the room. It was barely noticeable. It was also pure white. Her head hurt. She couldn’t twist her head to look around. There was a bright light overhead. It was pure white. Pure. Sickeningly. White. Her head _hurt._

“Helloooooo. Cerulean? Is your organic mind conscious enough to acknowledge my voice?” The voice said again.

“W-what?” Vriska forced out. “W-where?”

“W-w-w-w-what? W-w-w-w-where?” The voice mocked her. “Oh you organics. Is that a thing with your species? Because Bronze was also stuttering up a storm. Your voice isn’t nearly as pleasant though.”

Bronze. Who was she. Was she talking about. Why.

“Well I shouldn’t tease for too long. I still have to check on Ochre later. Then the fun can truly begin.” The figure on the far side of the room began to move towards her. The figure was thin. Paper thin. Paper white. Impossibly thin. Her head hurt. Their arms, legs, and body were disproportionate to their hands, feet, and head. They were also tall. Tall and thin. Thin and tall. It was like looking at a doll who had her arms, legs, and body stretched paper thin, yet the rest of the doll was left alone. So thin. So tall. Her head hurt. They were white. Pure white. Paper white. Paper thin. Impossibly thin. Impossibly tall. They had some kind of uniform. The uniform was mostly white. The only thing that separated this uniform from the rest of their body were lines. The lines were not white. The lines were black. Inky black. Inky dark black. Her head hurt. Her face was wrong. It felt wrong. The cheeks were hollow. Her smile was wide. But fake. A fake smile. The illusion of compassion. The vacancy of sympathy. The lack of empathy. Her hair was not white. It was black. Inky black. Inky dark black. Her right eye was gone. Replaced. No. Not replaced. Replaced implies there was an eye before. But that’s impossible. Because instead of a right eye, there was a gem. A white gem.

Pure white.

“It’s a shame I had to leave 2-XD with Bronze.”

Pure.

“He was an interesting one.”

Sickeningly.

“But let’s see if you’re any better, Cerulean.”

White.

 

* * *

 

 

When Sollux woke up, he first thought the room was empty. It certainly seemed that way, with pure white walls not hiding any figures. He sighed in relief, even though his arms and legs were restrained, and some contraption was over his head like a helmet. It blocked his psiionics. He didn’t remember how he got here, but he remembered the battle. Or, most of it. At one point his memories just...end.  

Normally Sollux liked the silence, but this one was deafening. Every second that passed without noise was grating on his think pan, and he would give anything to have Karkat shout in his face.  

Then, something finally broke the silence. A quiet noise that made Sollux perk up immediately. It sounded...like crying. It came again, and Sollux tried to twist his head, since it sounded like it was coming from behind him. All he saw was something red, but his head wouldn't move any farther.  

“H-hello?” He said softly. “Who’th there?”

Whoever it was then stood up and walked over to the side of the table he was on, and Sollux gasped. It was Aradia. She looked a little different, but Sollux was more focused on the fact that while he was a gem prisoner, she was out and walking around free.  

“Aradia? What’th going on, are you okay?”

The translucent red tears just continued to stream down her face as she reached down. She tried to touch his hand, but hers went right through. It shimmered as it passed through his body, the effect rippling up and amplifying the slightly translucent quality of her entire body. It was then that Sollux realized she wasn’t...entirely there.  

“Aradia?” his voice was softer. She didn't speak for a good minute. Then-

“It wasn’t your fault.” She said, her mouth barely moving as the words rang through the room. He wanted to tell her to be quiet, but somehow he knew no one else could hear her.  

The block seemed to grow smaller and colder.

“Are you...dead?”

Her silence was the only answer he needed.  

“What happened?” He asked. Her arms moved to hold herself.

“It was Vriska. She got impatient. Controlled you, in the middle of the battle. I couldn’t get out of the way.”

Sollux was silent. Aradia was silent. Everything was silent. Even Sollux’s think pan, normally haunted with the psychic screams of the soon-to-be dead, was silent. Maybe it was because he was surrounded by the nigh-immortal gems populating the Homeworld, maybe he was too far away from anyone about to die, he didn’t know.  For sweeps he’s begged for the noise to cease, but now….

“Do you thtill hear your voiceth, AA?”

A pause.

“Only my own. It’s louder. At points it’s all I can hear.”

The silence was deafening. All they could do was stare at each other, unsure of what to do. Aradia’s ghostly form was the only thing Sollux could see. They both cried in silence for what seemed like an eternity. Just the two of them. One of them dead.

A door slid open suddenly, breaking the silence.

“Well I hope you had fun talking to yourself in here.” A gem said, gliding into the room while jotting down notes on a holographic screen. Aradia looked sadly at Sollux.

“Be strong.” She said, retreating to a corner of the room. The gem didn’t react at all to her talking, which only confirmed Sollux’s suspicions. She just began fiddling with the helmet that had blocked Sollux’s psiionics, tightening it to the point that it was incredibly painful. She turned to Sollux then, smiling too widely to be sincere.  

“Alright Ochre, let’s see if the rumors are true.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're sorry the chapter took so long to come out, but we'll try sticking to a better update schedule. The key word here is try. The next chapter will be extra long to make up for this one being three short chapters compressed into one so be on the look out.


	10. Dave and Rose => Try Not to Aggravate the Aliens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and also to make up for the Really Short Chapter yesterday.....heres this one today!

It turns out that pretending to be government agents and interrogating freshly crashed aliens is  _ not _ a good idea.  Shocking, I know.  As soon as Dave had stepped closer to the one alien, she had bared her sharp teeth and pulled a trident from seemingly nowhere.  Apparently aliens are goddamn magicians too.  Dave and Rose stepped back cautiously, Dave’s hand heating up on reflex.  

“It’s okay, we won’t hurt you.” Rose said.  The alien narrowed her yellow eyes.

“How do you know Alternian?” She asked.  Rose shot a confused look at Dave, who shrugged.  

“How do you know English?” Dave responded.  

There was a tense silence, during which a three-way staring contest went down quite epically.  Granted, Dave’s eyes were covered, but the sentiment still stands.  All of a sudden, the unconscious alien groaned and moved slightly.  Rose started to kneel down, but was stopped by a hiss and a threatening movement of the trident.  

“You betta stay the shell away from her.” The alien said.  Dave burst out laughing, startling both Rose and the alien.  The trident lowered slightly.  

“Are you- sorry, are you making  _ fish puns _ ?”

Rose’s lips twitched and the alien relaxed a little more, confused.

“Uh, yeah?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s fin, why else?  It’s kinda what I do?”

Dave calmed down, resting his hand on a tree to prop himself up.  

“Okay, okay, I’m good.  Fish puns, sure, aliens use fish puns.  That’s great. It’s fuckin-  _ oh my god. _ ”

“So, while he’s having a mental crisis, what’s your name?” Rose asked, turning away from where Dave was re-dissolving into giggles.  The alien crossed her arms with a slight frown.  Rose shrugged, she probably wouldn’t trust them either, especially not with Dave being an idiot off to the side.  

“Why don’t I tell you our names first?” She said. 

“Didn’t you alraydy?” 

“No, that was Dave trying to make a joke.  He’s Dave, by the way.  My name is Rose.”

The alien’s lip curled. 

“But those names are so short.  At least the other ones were the right size.”

Rose frowned, completely lost. 

“The...right size?”

“Yeah.  You said Mulder and Scully right?  Six letters each, that makes sense.”

“Well, here our names are all different lengths.  What’s yours?”

The alien paused, brushing her long hair behind her ears, revealing that they were fin-like, and definitely looked aquatic.  

“Feferi.”  She said finally.  Then she pointed to the unconscious alien that was currently bleeding a dark green.  “She’s Kanaya.”

Rose counted on her fingers, and those names were indeed both six letters.  What a weird culture.  

“So, uh,” Dave started, breathing deeply to stop laughing finally, “why are you here?  What brings you to Earth?”

Feferi looked nervously back where the rest of the ship had gone down.  

“Whale, my friends and I fled our planet.  It’s a...pretty long story, and not very happy.”

“You got a Reader’s Digest version?” Dave said, drawing a blank stare from Feferi.

Rose punched Dave in the arm, luckily the one that hadn’t been shot.

“He means a short summary.”  She said.

Feferi started to explain what had happened, starting from when one of her friends told them about his mutation and how they decided to just leave the planet (and how Feferi was sad she had to leave two of her other good friends behind), to being accosted by a whole other alien race called Gems, to crash landing on Earth.  She got quiet when she mentioned how one of them died during the fight.  Dave and Rose didn’t even know the ‘troll’ she was talking about, but the look on her face was so forlorn that they couldn’t help but feel bad.  

“So, you probably want to get to the rest of your ship?” Rose asked.  Feferi nodded.

“We were just hooking for a safe planet to live, and now one where we can hopefully find a way to get the rest of our friends off Alternia and out of Gem custody.  It’s gonna be reely hard though.  We don’t even know where in the tunaverse they are now.”

Dave snorted quietly and whispered, “ _ Tunaverse. _ ”

“Well, we’ll help you, it looks like we’re headed in that direction too.  Your friend looks like she’ll need medical attention too.”

Feferi looked down at the still unconscious Kanaya.  

“Yeah, she took the brunt of the crash.  Can we wait to start moving until she wakes up?”

Dave and Rose agreed, and so they sat down in the wreckage of the escape pod.  They were silent for a bit, until Rose said that she was going to go find some food and walked into the trees.  

“So,” Feferi started, “this planet is called Earth?”

“Yep.”

Dave just couldn’t hold in the question any longer.

“Why  _ do _ you use fish puns?  It has to be more than it’s just fun.” He said, and Feferi shrugged. 

“It's just somefin the aristocrasea do.” She said, and then she giggled.  “Eridan always used to tell me to stop them.”

“You’re aristocracy?”  Dave asked, just now noticing the gold circlet around her head, with an odd symbol on a pink stone.  

“I was the heiress to the Empire.”

“And you just...gave that up?”

“Well the current Empress is a bit of a beach, and as soon as I came of age to take the throne she would have tried to krill me, so I probably wouldn’t have actually become Empress.”

“Jeez, your planet sounds rough.”

“So your ruler here doesn’t eliminate the heirs to keep the throne longer?”

Dave raised his eyebrows, shaking his head.

“Uh, no.  We don't have one main ruler at all.  We have a bunch of mini-rulers but it's not a dictatorship.  Mostly.”

“Huh.”

“I mean, to be honest Rose and I don’t really know much about how Earth works either.” Dave admitted, remembering SKAIA Labs, and how it's all the four of them had ever known.

“Water you mean?” Feferi asked, tilting her head to the side.  

“Me, Rose, and two of our friends basically grew up in a laboratory.  We don’t know why our guardians gave us to the lab, but it's where we’ve been until yesterday when we escaped.”

Feferi laughed lightly, an ironically bubbly sound.

“I cress all of us are on the run, then.  Why were you in a lab?  And where are your other friends?”

To answer, Dave made a little ball of flame in his palm.  Feferi gasped.  

“All of us have different powers.” Dave said.  “The lab was never gonna let us go and live our lives, and Rose’s mom and John’s dad helped break us out.  We got separated from them and our friends, but we think they’re in the same direction as your ship.”

Feferi looked a little confused.

“What’s a...mom?  Or a dad?”

“Well that’s just about the saddest thing I ever heard get said.” Dave said.  “They’re like, the people who raised you, except in our case they didn’t  _ really _ raise us, they were just there as we grew up.”

“Oh, so pike a lusus?”

“I have no clue what the fuck that is, but sure.”

Right then, Rose came walking back, a ball of water floating next to her.  She saw that Feferi looked only mildly shocked, and sighed in relief.

“Ah, good.  I figured you’d end up telling her.  Do you mind lighting a fire?” Rose asked, since most of the fires on the wreckage had gone out. Dave pushed together a bunch of sticks and lit them on fire as Rose reached into her bubble and grabbed a fish, tossing it to Dave.  He looked at her.

“Do you think I know what to do with this?  Please, tell me what aspects of my personality led you to that conclusion.”

“Well we don't have Mr. Egbert, so one of us is going to have to figure it out.”

Feferi sighed, but smiled.  She took her trident again and motioned for Dave to hold the fish out.  When he did, she speared it with the trident, and then held it out over the fire.  Rose sat down, keeping the bubble suspended next to her.  As they waited for the fish to cook, Dave told Rose what he had been talking about with Feferi.  When he had finished, they noticed that Feferi was looking up at the sky curiously.  

“Is everything okay?” Rose asked.  Feferi looked back at her.

“Oh, yeah.  I was just wondering if all Earthlings are awake during the day.  Your sun doesn’t seem as harsh as ours though.”

“Yes, humans are awake during the day.  Are trolls nocturnal?”

“Most of us.  The Alternian sun is dangerous, only a few trolls can stand it.  Kanaya is one of them, actually!  She’s the only troll I’ve met that stays awake during the day.”

Rose looked back at the troll still lying on the ground, her chest moving slowly as she breathed.  Her wounds seem to have stopped bleeding, but they didn’t look good.  

“Are you sure she’s going to be okay?” She asked.  Feferi looked worriedly at Kanaya.

“I think so.  I’m no Doctorphaner but if we let her rest I think she’ll be ok!”  Her smiled seemed a little forced, but the fish was done and it drew Dave and Rose’s attention away from Kanaya.  Rose had gotten three fish, and so each of them had one to themselves.  While Dave and Rose picked at their fish, Feferi used her sharp teeth and just bit into it.  

Dave shared a look with Rose.

_ Aliens _ .  

By the time they finished eating, the moon was starting to rise.

“Do you think it’s okay to move her?” Rose asked Feferi, who nodded.

“We have to.  Let’s try to wake her up first, it might make it the journey a little easier.”

She knelt next to Kanaya, shaking her gently.  Kanaya groaned, but eventually her eyes fluttered open.

“F-feferi?  Did we make it?” She asked, her voice hoarse.  

“‘Course we did, Kanaya!  We know where Karkrab and Terezi landed too, these humans are gonna kelp us find them!” Feferi said excitedly.  Kanaya blinked and looked at Dave and Rose.  

“Whale, come on!  I’ll help you up!”

Feferi held out a hand and Kanaya took it, wincing slightly as she stood up.  Rose took a closer look at her, noticing how her skirt had been torn and there was a green bloodstain on the front of her shirt.  It didn’t seem to be getting any bigger.  Once Kanaya was steadier on her feet, she held her hand out to Dave and Rose.

“My name is Kanaya.  Thank you for helping us.”

Rose shook her hand.

“I’m Rose.  This is Dave.”

“‘Sup.” Dave said.  

The four then started walking through the trees towards where the rest of the ship had fallen.  Kanaya was being slightly supported by Feferi, who was also walking slowly and with a minor limp.  Rose wished she could help, but she was barely able to tend to Dave’s gunshot wound, she had no clue what to do here.  The woods were thick, and it was hard to keep track of what direction they were going, but they kept walking until the moon was high in the sky and the only light to see by was Dave’s blazing hand.  

They didn’t talk any more, even though Rose was dying to learn more about the alien culture.  Their breaks were few and far between, Feferi and Kanaya both insisting they were fine.

They just walked.  

Eventually the trees thinned out and the ground became less rugged.  Rose sighed in relief.

“I think we’re getting close, I can feel the ocean nearby.  Your ship was flying over the ocean right?”

“Yes, it was.” Kanaya answered, slightly breathless.  Her grey skin looked pale, but Rose couldn’t tell if that was normal or not.  It was flushed a slight green too, and she was sweating.  

Rose wanted to ask again if she was okay, but she had already asked a lot and didn’t want to seem annoying.  

So they just kept walking.  When the trees broke, finally, Rose could see a large cliff in the distance, with what looked to be a smoke trail blowing away in the breeze.  She instinctively picked up the pace, but was forced to slow down again to not leave the injured trolls in the dust.  

She heard light panting behind her, turning her head to see Kanaya leaning more heavily on Feferi, her skin  _ definitely _ less grey than it was earlier.  

“Kanaya, are you sure you’re alright?  I think we should rest here for a bit.” She said, and Kanaya shook her head, pushing herself off of Feferi.

“No, I’m alright.  We need to find Karkat, I’m...I-”

She fell to her knees, catching herself at the last moment before she faceplanted into the dirt.  Feferi knelt down in a hurry, worry clouding her face.  

“What’s wrong, where are you hurt?” She asked, and Kanaya’s hand clutched her stomach.  

“My stomach...it didn’t hurt like this when I woke up…”

Feferi began to pull Kanaya’s shirt up, stopping when she reached what was obviously the problem.  Rose covered her mouth, and she saw Dave pale visibly.  

A shard of metal had pierced Kanaya’s midsection through her back, just barely poking out the front.  Enough that it broke the skin, but not enough that it was noticeable through her shirt.  Rose didn’t know much about medicine, but she learned enough from Gray’s Anatomy to know that the metal was the only thing keeping Kanaya from bleeding to death.  In fact, it was keeping her from bleeding at all.  

“Oh my cod, Kanaya.  How did you not feel this?”  She looked up at Dave and Rose.  “We need to hurry up, maybe your friends or someone else can help!” 

Dave and Rose hurried to help pick Kanaya up, and they began walking again with her propped in between the three of them.  Her face was tight, and she winced with every step, but she kept moving and didn’t collapse again.  Rose doubted John or Jade would be able to help.  

“I wish one of us had some sort of healing power.” She said.  Her own water magic wasn’t very helpful in a situation like this.  

She thought she felt her necklace heat up a little, as if reacting to what she said about healing magic, but it was gone as fast as it came and she brushed it off as her imagination.  

They kept walking towards the large cliff, eventually coming to the crest of a hill overlooking a small town.  They passed a sign saying ‘WELCOME TO BEACH CITY’, which caused Rose to turn to Dave excitedly.  She saw him look back at her with the same expression, and they looked at the town in a new light.  John and Jade were definitely there, or would be there soon.  All they had to worry about now was Kanaya.  She was an alien that they had just met, but she and Feferi were nice.  

_Also Kanaya was pretty_. Rose shook her head and just kept moving forward.  Luckily it was nighttime, so nobody was around the city (although Dave swore he saw a small kid crawling in a vending machine), but soon they reached a beach.  They could see the wreckage of a ship on the sand ahead, the smoke almost completely gone, but there didn’t seem to be any movement inside it.  

“Ah!” Kanaya cried out, as her foot sunk slightly into the sand and she was sent pitching into Rose.  Rose caught her, and steadied her back on her feet, but her heart sunk anyway.  The dried green bloodstain on Kanaya’s shirt...wasn’t dry anymore.  

“Shit, Kanaya, I think your wound is bleeding again!” She said, and Kanaya put a hand to her chest.  Sure enough, it came back stained in green.  

“Oh.” She said.  Then she put her arm back over Rose’s shoulder and took another, shuddering step.  

“Wait, we should stop!  I don’t think you should walk anemonemore!” Feferi said.  

“We can’t just s-stop on the sand, though.  I think I see a set of escalation platforms over there, maybe there’s a hive.”

Rose understood about 96% of that sentence, but she got the gist and looked past the crash site.  There did seem to be a stairway.  She sighed.  She didn’t think Kanaya should be walking either, but if there was a house then maybe there were supplies.  Maybe they could convince the homeowners to now shut the door on two teenagers and two aliens.  After all, a ship did crash on their front lawn. 

Their progress along the sand was excruciatingly slow, and Rose watched the bloodstain on Kanaya’s shirt grow.  By the time they made it to the stairs, you couldn’t even see the odd symbol that was on the front of the shirt.  Kanaya collapsed on the bottom stair, holding both her hands to the wound.  

“Dave, can you go see who lives here?” Rose asked.  He nodded and walked up the steps, navigating carefully past Kanaya.  “Feferi, can you help at all?  Being the same species?”

Feferi’s eyes were watering with a translucent pink liquid.

“I..I don’t know.  My collapsing and expanding bladder based aquatic vascular system is different than hers. I don't know if anything was punctured or not!”

Rose hated feeling helpless. She didn't think washing out the wound would do anything, and that's about all she could do. So she wrung her hands as Kanaya put pressure on the wound, wincing as the metal still inside her shifted. 

Dave made his way to the door, relieved to not be down with Kanaya and Feferi. Not that he didn't like them, the opposite really, but he didn't know how to help and he didn't want to be dead weight. So he knocked on the screen door, hearing light chatter from inside. It ceased as soon as he knocked, and soon a confused figure made their way to the door. They only grew more confused as they caught sight of Dave, and vice versa since the figure had a weird lump on their forehead. If Dave didn't know better he’d swear it was a gigantic pearl, but-

Actually, scratch that, after what happened today he could totally believe it. 

“Eh, hello? Can I...help you?” The person said, looking at Dave oddly. 

“Yeah, uh, my friends and I could really use some help out here. Medical help. Now. It's uh, urgent.” Dave said awkwardly. The person looked past him down the stairs and their face visibly flattened. They looked identical to the flat line emoji. 

“Oh you have  _ got _ to be kidding me.” They grumbled. Then they turned back into the house. “Garnet? You're going to want to see this.”

Garnet? Dave wondered what kind of name that was. Then another person came to the door, much larger and with hair that was literally a square. They took one look at Kanaya bleeding on the steps and crossed their arms before turning back to Dave and cocking their head. 

“You wouldn't happen to be the friends of two humans named John and Jade, would you?” They said. Dave nodded. 

“Yeah, actually. They here?” 

They nodded, and the other person nudged them nervously. 

“ _ Garnet _ . What do we do about the trolls?” They hissed. Garnet sighed. 

“There's only two of them, they must be with the others. I don't think they're much of a threat. We should help them.  Go make sure Steven is asleep.” Then they started to make their way to Rose, Kanaya, and Feferi. The other strange person went back to the house, and Dave looked inside too, trying to see John and Jade. He saw some weird crystal platform on the ground, but no sign of his friends. 

He heard Feferi cry out in alarm and whipped around. She was holding her trident in between Kanaya and Garnet, the latter raising their hands up. 

“If you don't trust me, I can’t help your friend.”

“Why would you help us in the first place? You're  _ gems _ .”

So that really was a pearl on that person's forehead then. Dave was completely blown away by this stunning revelation. 

“Because you probably came with the other two trolls currently unconscious inside, and I don’t consider four adolescent trolls a threat, especially when two of them are asleep and one is gravely injured.”

Feferi paused, then slowly lowered her trident. Garnet knelt down and picked up Kanaya, carrying her carefully up the stairs. Feferi and Rose followed behind, Feferi watching Garnet nervously. Inside, Kanaya was laid down on a table and Dave realized she had fallen unconscious. That wasn't good. Garnet took a look at the wound and frowned. Then she stood and walked over to the door on the other side of the house, walking inside an obviously magical room. 

Turning back to Kanaya, Dave saw Feferi inspecting two other trolls lying asleep on the couch, both looking fairly worse for wear.  

“Are those your friends?” He asked, and she nodded.

“That’s Karkat,” She pointed to a male troll with short horns and a frown, “and that’s Terezi.” The other troll had pointed, cone-like horns and her shirt had a whole burnt through the back of it.  There was a weird bump on her back, another gem-like thing.  

The door opened again and Garnet exited first, followed by a shorter blue person (she (?) was literally blue what the fuck) and then two humans who ran full speed at Dave and Rose.  

“Dave!” Jade shouted, launching herself at him and tackling him in a hug.  Garnet shushed them and they immediately quieted down.  

“Sorry Garnet.” John said, since he too had shouted as he ran.  Then they caught sight of Kanaya on the table and gaped.

“Holy shit, what happened?” John whispered, and Rose walked over so she could whisper and still be heard.  

“Their escape pod crashed pretty close to us.  We checked it out and they really needed help finding their friends so they came with us.  We didn’t realize Kanaya was injured until we were almost here.”  Her voice shook almost imperceptibly.  The blue person knelt beside Kanaya.  

“I have to warn you, I’ve never tried to heal a troll.  My powers barely work on human organic matter, I don’t know if it’ll work with your bodies.” She said.  Feferi gripped her trident tighter.

“Just try, please.” She said.  The blue figure placed her hands next to Kanaya’s wound and a light blue glow surrounded the shard of metal.  Then it faded, and the gem-person turned around.  

“Well, there’s some okay news and some bad news.  Okay news, I might be able to heal her.  Bad news, I definitely can’t heal her with this debris still imbedded in her.”

“Oh.” Rose said, gut twisting.  

“You don’t have to stay here for it, I promise I’ll try my hardest to help her.”

John and Jade pulled the other two humans into the kitchen of the house, which unfortunately still had a view of the couch and table, but was far enough away.  

“So, who are these people?” Rose asked.  Jade crossed her arms.  

“They’re aliens.  They all have gemstones, and apparently their bodies are just made of light?  Steven explained it better than I can, but he’s asleep right now.”

“Steven?”

“He’s like, fourteen.  He’s half human, half gem.” John explained.  

“Who was the one that opened the door?  Looked a bit like a bird?” Dave asked, and John laughed.

“That was Pearl.  She’s nice, probably more of a mom than your mom, Rose.”

“Anybody is more of a mom than mine, honestly.” Rose said, rolling her eyes.  

There was a grunt from the living room, followed by a sickening squelching sound that made all four humans wince.  

“You, heiress, help me!  Quickly!”

As Feferi rushed to help, Pearl looked over from the loft above the living room.  

“Is everything alright, Kyanite?” She called softly.  

“I...I’m trying.” Kyanite called back, the room filling with a soft blue glow.  “My powers aren’t meant to work on trolls.  She...oh my stars this is a worse wound than I thought.”

Rose and Dave rushed back into the living room, stopping when they saw the surface of the table covered in green, with it dripping onto the floor too.  Kyanite had her hands on the heavily bleeding gash through Kanaya’s stomach, with Feferi trying to staunch the bleeding.  The blue glow persisted, and soon it filled the whole house.  

It looked like the bleeding was starting to slow.

There was a rustling up on the loft, and a sleepy voice said, “Pearl?  What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing Steven, go back to sleep.” Pearl said.  

Feferi, not caring at all about being discreet, cursed as she mopped up the blood.  Pearl sighed.  A head poked over the edge of the loft, gasping at the sight below him.  

But neither Rose nor Dave focused on him, because suddenly the blue glow was fading and Feferi was crying pink tears.  Kyanite stood up, face stricken and hands covered in jade green blood.  Rose paled, and Dave stiffened.  They looked at Kanaya, who had quickly become a friend.  She was still.  

Kyanite looked to Feferi, and then the two humans.  Her eyes were sad.  

Kanaya was too stiff. Too still.

Kyanite’s voice broke through the silence.

“I’m sorry.”   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you're very welcome. 
> 
> Also, because we have Zero update schedule, I don't know when the next chapter is gonna be up, but both of us will have a lot more time soon so hopefully it wont take another month.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a reminder that we're writing in a prompt based system, so if there's anything you want to see the characters doing, then let us know by commenting something for them to do, and we'll probably write it. Thanks for reading, and have a great day.


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